


The warmth of his hand

by CureIcy



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, JonTim Week 2021 (The Magnus Archives), M/M, Suicidal Ideation, day 3 prompt: cold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29827476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CureIcy/pseuds/CureIcy
Summary: Jon walked out into the cold, certain that no one would care. Somehow, the idea that someone did care hurts even more.
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker
Comments: 5
Kudos: 74
Collections: JonTim Week 2021





	The warmth of his hand

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since i've written anything for this fandom, and this has been sitting finished for a while. Anyways, please check out the jontim week if you haven't done so already!

“Jon? Jon, what the fuck. Jon, answer me,  _ please!” _

Jon’s eyes snap open at that last word. Someone…. he’s disappointed someone again, hasn’t he? Except Tim doesn’t look disappointed, he looks…. Jon lets his mind drift, searching for the word in the sea of slush that seems to have replaced the substance between his ears, but is abruptly shaken by the shoulders. That was rude, wasn’t it?

Distraught. That’s the word. Tim looks distraught. His face is flushed, he’s yelling something that Jon can’t make out over the growing roar of static in his ears. Snow blows past his face, and then Tim lifts Jon up and he realizes the snow isn’t blowing, it’s falling.

And Jon is—

Jon doesn’t know. He can’t feel himself. Can’t remember why he’s here or where he is or what he was doing, he just— 

“Tim?” 

The word is pushed harshly out of Jon’s throat; he coughs and tries again, and coughs some more. Because Tim’s name should be whispered in candlelight, not spat out like the blockage in his throat and  _ what the fuck it just hit him that he was lying in the snow for two hours and thirty seven minutes _ and he doesn’t know where the number came from but he knows it’s not… good. It’s not good, is it?

“I’m right here,” Tim promises, unbuttoning his coat. Jon remembers that coat. He remembers when he first arrived and the music was painful from the doorway and he saw Tim’s bright teal coat hung neatly, stark against the unassuming greys and blacks surrounding. It looked warm.

It is warm. It’s wrapped around Jon, and Jon is in Tim’s arms, and Tim is running. His heart is beating so fast that Jon can hear it, his breath coming out in harsh clouds, and he keeps saying something to Jon.

He looks cold. He looks scared. Why is Jon wearing his coat? He tries to wriggle out, to give it back to Tim, but it’s wrapped so tightly that his arms are pinned to his sides and he thinks his fingers might be numb anyways. 

He still has them, doesn’t he? He can’t feel them, and there’s a flash of panic as he tries to wriggle his fingers, and then sharp pinpricks of pain light them up. He has fingers. His fingers are functioning. They hurt, everything hurts, and he is tired.

“I’ve got you,” Tim murmurs, in a single moment of Jon’s clarity before he’s drifting again, like the snowflakes.

Then the all consuming cold is gone, and there’s the rattling of stairs under Tim’s feet and finally a door shuts. It’s peaceful. Is that how it happened? Jon’s thoughts are settling into something like order now, but his mental clarity is so capricious to come and go like the tide. 

“Jon?” Tim says, carefully setting him down on the couch.

“Yeah. M’here.” Jon breathes in and out, staring at Tim’s arms and vaguely hoping that the yearning isn’t evident in his gaze. It was nice, being held. And Tim is warm and strong and safe.

“Okay.” Tim nods. “I’m going to need to get those clothes off you, okay? They’re soaking wet.”

“I can--” A minute of fumbling with the first button reveals that Jon, in fact, can not. “Go ahead,” he says, resigned.

Jon would be embarrassed by the undressing if he had the breath to protest, but it’s altogether brief and his fingers are too numb to do much of anything. So he watches with a detached disinterest as Tim peels away layers of his wet clothing, tossing them into a laundry basket, and finally wraps a bathrobe around him.

“Tim, am I okay?”

“You’re gonna be,” Tim says, in a tone that makes it sound like a threat.

“I was...” Jon wracks his tired brain, trying to find an explanation, some justification for what he was doing out in the snow. Loud, painful, something bright. And then wonder. Wonder, soft, cold…

“It was soft,” Jon says, before he has the forethought to stop himself. “The snow.”

“Jon, just— you’re not in your right mind, okay? I think the frostbite’s making you confused.”

“Yes. No. Stop it. Let me...” Jon wants to pace, except he’s not him, he’s stuck and the words in his head are like fish trapped in blocks of ice floating sluggishly down a river rather than swarming and swimming like they used to. “I’m not okay, am I.”

“Like hell you’re not! Jon, I found you facedown in the snow, your hands are—”

Jon’s hands are— 

“Okay?” Tim breathes the word out, some strange combination of emotions too tangled to parse. Because the blue is retreating from Jon’s fingertips, and something inside of Jon cracks like ice and shatters. He thinks it’s his heart.

And so Jon gives him a sad smile. “I think— I think. It’s an Archivist thing.” A monster thing, he doesn’t say, but that’s what he means.

“Okay, the stalker fear demon gave you healing powers? I— shit.” Tim pinches the bridge of his nose. “What were you even doing out there? You said you had a ride.”

Oh. That’s where he was? Jon remembers something about a party, some kind of office event that he’d shown up at and then left. No one wanted him there anyways. He said his car was just outside, and then he walked and walked as the world turned white and faded to grey and then a peaceful, quiet black.

But Jon doesn’t say that. He just turns his head to the side and says, “I didn’t want to burden anyone. I’m fine, aren’t I?”

“Damnit, Jon, you can't just pull shit like this!” Tim looks close to tears. “You’re still a person, and you deserve to be treated with basic human dignity at the least. You’re going to carve yourself up and give it all away if no one stops you.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Jon asks him. He’s worth more that way, isn’t he? More as the sum of his parts than a whole.

“There’s no point.” Tim starts to walk away, and Jon reaches out, a wordless cry building in his throat, but all he does is gather up blankets from the other couch and start piling them on Jon, futile rectangles of fabric trying to retain warmth that he doesn’t have. “Sacrifice. Valor. It’s all worthless, Jon. The world doesn’t care about us. So we’ve got to care about each other. And ourselves.”

“I wish I could,” Jon tells him. It feels nice to be honest, but the truth is heavy on his tongue.

“Please try. For me?”

“I’m not a good person, Tim. I’m a fucking mess and all I ever do is hurt people. Why should I care if I get hurt?”

And that’s the real question, isn’t it? Jon would gladly push himself down a flight of stairs, so why would Tim care? Why would he carry Jon into his house, the same house that Jon took pictures of in his paranoia?

“If you can’t love yourself at your worst, then you’re a coward,” Tim states bluntly. “Because I did, and I still do. So shut the fuck up about how problematic you are and let me hold you.”

“Okay,” Jon whispers. He tries for a smile. His face is half frozen and he’s sure it’s grotesque, but Tim comes over to him, slides under the blankets, and shares his warmth.

It’s nice. It’s peaceful. But it can’t get rid of the worry. That Jonathan Sims is unlovable.

“Tim, I—” he begins.

“What?”

“I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t think I feel love the same way you do. It’s a quiet thing. A longing. But I bury everything, Tim. I bury it in the snow until it dies and I think my love is the same way.”

“But you’re here, you’re with me, and I’ll warm you. Isn’t that enough?” Tim begs. “Can’t I be enough for once? Just stop all of this, and hold onto me.”

“Tim,” Jon breathes, “you’ve always been so much more than just enough. You’re… you mean  _ so much _ to me, and I need you to know that.”

Because Tim, Tim is fierce and kind and funny and loving and bold and he is a good person. And Jon is in love with him in the same way that the moon is in love with the sun, circling and hiding and hoping to reflect just a fraction of his unending light. Jon reaches up to cradle Tim’s face and they meet like an eclipse, and Tim’s lips are as warm as the rest of him.

That night, for the first time in years, Jon shares the warmth of another’s bed and sleeps without dreaming.


End file.
